The orchestra of the Grand Duchy, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (OPL) represents a very dynamic part of the culture of its country. Since its stunning debut in 1933 under the aegis of Radio Luxembourg (RTL), the orchestra, commissioned by the state in 1996, has been present all over Europe, and since the opening of the Philharmonie Luxembourg in 2005 the OPL has been housed in one of Europe’s most outstanding concert halls.

The acoustics of its residence, praised by great orchestras, conductors and soloists all over the world, its long-standing connections with institutions like the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, as well as with festivals like Musica in Strasbourg and Ars Musica in Brussels, and most importantly the precision and musicality of its music director Emmanuel Krivine and the intense work done by the orchestra with first-rate musical personalities like Evgeny Kissin, Julia Fischer and Jean-Yves Thibaudet have all contributed to making the OPL an orchestra renowned for the elegance of its sound. This indeed finds confirmation in the impressive list of awards for recordings only in the last five years with about twenty recordings (Grand Prix Charles Cros, Victoires de la musique classique, Orphée d’Or de l’Académie du Disque Lyrique, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Télérama ffff, Pizzicato Excellentia, IRR Outstanding, BBC Music Choice, as well as several Diapasons d’Or, Chocs du Monde de la Musique, Pizzicato Supersonic, Classica R10, and many others).

Now in his fifth season as the sixth Directeur Musical (after Henri Pensis, Louis de Froment, Leopold Hager, David Shallon and Bramwell Tovey), Emmanuel Krivine has distinguished the OPL with “his subtle mastery of colours, his supple phrasing and his love for the sensuous French repertoire whose seductive force the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg has fully conquered” (Le Monde). The press see in the OPL a “clear, elegant orchestra with a fine palette of colours” (Le Figaro) and this is undoubtedly fruit of its links with the grand romantic and classic repertoire but also of its intensive connections with the music of such composers as Iannis Xenakis (complete recording of his orchestral works), Ivo Malec, Hugues Dufourt, Toshio Hosokawa, Klaus Huber, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Helmut Lachenmann, Georges Lentz, Philippe Gaubert, Gabriel Pierné, Arthur Honegger and many others. This diversity is seen again in its regular opera productions staged at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, the ciné-concerts like “Live Cinema” in collaboration with the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg, the “Pops at the Phil” evenings with such stars as Dionne Warwick, Maurane or Angélique Kidjo, the open-air concerts with jazz and rock groups as part of the Fête de la Musique, etc. Musicians featured in the 2011/12 season will include the soloists Ian Bostridge, Julia Fischer, David Fray, Robert Levin, Camilla Nylund, Maria João Pires, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Francesco Tristano and Thomas Zehetmair, and the conductors Ji?í B?lohlávek, Sir Andrew Davis, Lawrence Foster, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Heinz Holliger, Peter Rundel, Vassily Sinaisky and Gast Waltzing.